How Brexit Broke British Politics

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.” Every British schoolchild has been brought up on this idiom. Theresa May is clearly no exception. She tried to get her deal through the House of Commons three times, and three times she was defeated. There’s another adage, allegedly American: “If you’re in a hole, stop digging.” All that May achieved was to dig her own political grave. The tombstone will read “Brexit means Brexit” — except it didn’t.

What now? The test of any political system is how it copes with an issue that divides the nation. Brexit split not only the nation but also both the Conservative and Labour parties. Without a written constitution, and with a sovereign parliament, there are two requirements for major change in Britain. The first is a public mandate. And the second is a working majority in the House of Commons to implement that mandate.

In normal circumstances, a general election is the mechanism by which one party obtains both a public mandate and a majority of seats in the Commons. Over many years the system worked pretty well. On most big questions the two parties had different views which could be put before the electorate. And elections ensured some rotation of the party in power and gave voters the opportunity to throw out governments that were seen to have failed.

Membership of the European Union posed a new challenge. Divisions on the evolution of the EU and the U.K.’s place inside it were not between the parties but within them. Voters had no good way to express their views. Questions about sovereignty and immigration weren’t the subject of reasoned debate but were simply suppressed. Opposing immigration had been tainted with racism in the 1950s and 1960s, and most politicians preferred to avoid the subject. But that was impossible once immigration from the new Eastern European members of the EU caused Britain’s population growth to surge, putting pressure on public services. The U.K. Independence Party seized the opportunity and grew more popular.

Eventually, the political establishment could see no alternative but to offer a referendum on EU membership — which, with support from both main parties and right-thinking experts of all kinds, they were confident of winning. It turned out that by excluding the issues from public debate, they had only pulled the wool over their own eyes.

In June 2015, the House of Commons voted for a referendum on EU membership by the extraordinary majority of 544 votes to 53. (All 53 votes against were cast by the Scottish Nationalists, a group that believes in referendums north, but not apparently south, of the border.) Voters were told the choice was theirs, and they voted to leave. But there was no parliamentary majority to deliver Brexit, and no vision of what Brexit even meant. The 2017 general election made things worse. Both main parties promised to deliver Brexit, and then conspired to make this impossible. The deadlock remains, and there’s no reason to think that a new prime minister can break it.

The best way forward would be for the two main parties to develop clear opposing positions on Brexit, and put the disagreement to voters at another general election. If either party won a majority in the Commons, it could then claim a mandate on Brexit and set about delivering it. The problem is that an approaching election might lead both parties to fudge their positions on Brexit to avoid alienating voters who might support them on other issues. That would be one more failure of leadership in this endless sorry story.

Why not a second referendum? There are three arguments against. First, consider the past several years: Parliament cannot commit itself, let alone its successors, to accept the people’s choice. That’s why coherent government can arise only from parties competing in general elections. Second, it is no longer possible to confine the options, as in 2016, to a binary choice on the fundamental issue — in or out. That’s why people calling for a second referendum are so vague on what it might ask. Third, no prime minister will want to risk his or her premiership on the outcome of such a vote. A new election seems far better suited to Britain’s circumstances.

Despite the political crisis the U.K. economy continues to perform in solid if unspectacular fashion. Since the 2016 referendum output in Britain has grown slightly faster than in Germany. Nonetheless, political uncertainty is almost certainly delaying investment and slowing growth. The U.K. needs a decision one way or the other. But, regardless of who becomes the next prime minister, making this decision is something the country’s politicians still seem incapable of doing.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Clive Crook at ccrook5@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mervyn King is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a member of the U.K. House of Lords, and a professor of economics and law at New York University. He was governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013.

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